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No evidence of IS presence in Kashmir, but have to investigate claim: Police

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of constable Farooq Ahmed Yatoo in Srinagar’s Soura locality on Sunday.

Policemen stand guard near the site of a gunfight between militants and forces near Srinagar airport in October 2017.

The Jammu and Kashmir police on Tuesday said although there is no evidence of the presence of the terror group Islamic State (IS) in Kashmir, its claim that it killed a policeman in Srinagar on Sunday has to be investigated.

“The claim (of the killing of the policeman) is on their (Islamic State's) website. There is no perceivable presence of the Islamic State on the ground in Kashmir but it (the claim) needs to be investigated further,” director general of state police SP Vaid said over phone.

“It could be possible that an individual militant, influenced by the Islamic State, carried out the attack. We are investigating it. But there is no evidence to suggest any presence of the outfit in the Valley,” he added.

Reportedly, the IS has said through its news platform, Amaq News Agency, that it successfully carried out the killing of constable Farooq Ahmed Yatoo in Soura locality of Srinagar on Sunday night. Yatoo, a native of Chadoora area of Budgam district, was posted as a guard at the residence of separatist leader Fazal Haq Qureshi.

The Centre too sought to downplay the issue of Islamic State’s presence in Jammu and Kashmir, saying it has no existence in the Valley.

“There is no physical infrastructure or manpower of the IS in the Valley. It does not exist in the Valley,” a home ministry spokesperson said in Nerw Delhi.

This is the second time in the last three months that the IS has claimed, through its official mouthpiece, to carry out an attack in Kashmir. IN November last year, IS claimed an attack in Zakura on the outskirts of Srinagar in which a policeman and a militant were killed.

The DGP has said in the past, too, that the IS has “no footprint in Kashmir” as has the Union home ministry. After the IS’ claim in November, Rajya Sabha was told in January that “nothing has been established on ground that the ISIS is operating in any part of Kashmir valley”.

Minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir in his reply, however, had mentioned militant commander Zakir Musa’s organisation, Ansar Gazwat-Ul-Hind (AGUH), which is said to be a branch of the Al-Qaeda in Kashmir. It was reportedly formed in July last year.

“Ansar Gazwat-Ul-Hind (AGUH) formed and led by Zakir Musa (former Hizbul-Mujahideen militant) has posted adverse materials on social media. There are reports that at present Zakir Musa has support of less than 10 militants,” Ahir had said.

Even Kashmir’s separatist leaders, including Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik, had said last year that the “ongoing freedom struggle” in the state is “indigenous” and has “nothing to do with” global terrorist groups such as the IS or Al-Qaeda.

“Our movement has nothing to do with these world-level groups and practically they are non-existent in the state. There is no role for these groups in our movement,” they had said in a statement.

SAINT PETERSBURG: A
homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, officials said, sparking a
probe into attempted murder.

"According to preliminary information, an explosion of
an unidentified object occurred in a store," a spokeswoman for Russia's Investigative
Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, said in a statement.

The blast was caused by a "homemade explosive device
with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT filled with lethal
fragments," she said.

"The investigation is looking at all possible causes of
what happened," she said, adding that a probe for attempted murder had
been launched.

The incident comes several months after Russia's second city
was rocked with a metro bombing in April which killed 16 people and amid
concern that hundreds of Russian citizens who travelled to fight alongside
jihadists groups abroad could pose a mounting security challenge back home.

Rattled by a one-two
punch of betrayal and scandal, Donald Trump on Thursday tried to block the
publication of a bare-knuckle book that portrays his White House as a fetid
stew of backbiting, incompetence and dysfunction. The publishers
responded by moving the release date up by four days to Friday. Trump instructed his
lawyers to prevent the release of “Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House” -- an expose by author and political muckraker Michael
Wolff -- which quotes key Trump aides expressing serious doubt
about his fitness for office. The book -- which
paints Trump as mentally unstable and far out of his depth -- quotes at length
his former ally and chief strategist Steve Bannon, who also received a “cease and
desist” order from Trump’s attorneys. “Your publication of
the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other
claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion
of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, an…